The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale for me is a book about what if a tamed down form of slavery happened to White women. With this premise in mind, the book goes astray from the start with erasure of the atrocities of what true slavery was. There is also the erasure of POC in the novel as well as LGBTQIA+ folx. An issue I have with books that are made into movies or T.V. shows is that they often attempt to fix the flaws of the original book. What made The Handmaid’s tale so horrific for its original audiences was the fact that this was happening to White women: a typically semi-protected class. That this level of systemic state sanctioned violence is reserved for POC.
When we take away the erasure and the watering down of slavery, we’re still left with a book that lacks substance. The world building is lacking as is the character development. It feels to me that the Hulu adaption has folx confused about the depth of the original work. The romance between the driver and MC is not fully developed nor the relationship between those living in the home. The fact that the issue was with the man and not the wife felt to me like it had been written in to add more shock value for how badly White women were being treated. That even the White women of the protected class were not safe from weakness and abuse of men.
I would feel remiss if I did not speak about the author. I am shocked that folx do not know that the author is a terrible person and always has been. At best the argument has been made that Atwood is racially insensitive and clumsy when making choice such as naming the organization that helps women escape “Underground Femaleroad”. I take it a step further and say that Atwood is willfully ignorant and racist. I agree that her writing is ignorant and lazy with no real world building and a narrow lens that stymies character development. That cultural laziness of not doing any research is born out of a lack of care. Atwood’s form of feminism is separatist and does not include all womxn. I do not separate the art from the artist. I also do not think, even if I did, that the book The Handmaid’s Tale is any good. I think at this point it is painfully obvious I do not like this book, and I like the author even less.